


jealous sea

by belby



Category: IT - Stephen King
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Bisexual Richie Tozier, Gay Eddie Kaspbrak, Jealous Richie Tozier, M/M, Making Out, Mild Sexual Content, Oblivious Pining, yes he dates a girl in this but he's just closeted okay the boy is gay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-30
Updated: 2019-09-30
Packaged: 2020-11-08 06:17:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,558
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20830772
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/belby/pseuds/belby
Summary: The sympathy in Bev’s voice is also written all over her face. She parts her lips, trying to find the right words, one eye slightly pinched. And even worse than the pity is the fuckingknowing. This overwhelming sense that she has some idea of what’s going on right now. And Richie absolutely hates it because he, himself, doesnot.Like, he just fuckingthrew upand he has no ideawhy.(Eddie dates someone. Richie is sure his sudden bout of sickness is unrelated).





	jealous sea

**Author's Note:**

> i dont know what to say about this except an anon on tumblr wrote the words disasterjealous!richie and my brain said: you should write that it'd be fun and i said 'yeah' and then my brain said: also you should make it way longer and hornier than it needs to be

Richie knows it’s Bev, and not Mike, who’s just come home by the way Bev shuts the front door.

Mike is always careful. Bev is always aggressive, like the door had insulted her as she stepped up onto their front door step and she’s making it pay.

He can also tell it’s Bev by the way she shouts, as loud as the _snap _of the door to the frame, “Richie, you better not be sitting on your bony ass!”

That’s exactly what Richie is doing.

Bev marches down the hall. When she appears, in a sleeveless sundress, she’s quite a sight. But Bev is always a sight. Full red lips – full of _fury,_ that is – the kind of fierce, burning green eyes that can pin you in place with a single look. She’s flushed and a little sweaty at the temples from the summer heat, the skin of her throat, leading to her chest, a very pleasant shade of her pink. Her red hair – winter fire, and all that – is, however, perfectly neat. Her curls less frizzy and far more styled than usual, because she has just come back from the hairdresser.

Bev is much a more a cut-your-hair-by-yourself-in-your-tiny-bathroom type of gal, but last night Richie had squeezed into the bathroom with her and said, “yo, can I try?” And then _Mike_ had also squeezed into the bathroom and had snorted, “you’d just give her a mohawk or some shit.”

And Bev had laughed, like she thought that to be true. But there must’ve been something about the whole thing – the three of them, far bigger, lankier (but not, particularly, much smarter) than they used to be – all squished together in that little room, filling up every corner. The stuffy, swimming heat, the little orange light buzzing, shining on their damp, glazed skin. It made them all feel a little giddy, a little out of it. And so Bev had let Richie cut her hair.

And Richie had absolutely fucked it up. To say the least.

But at least it looks much better now.

“Hey, sexy mama,” Richie greets her.

“Oh, fuck, look at this place,” Bev says, studying the lounge-room with a very pinched look of disgust. As though she doesn’t live here, and doesn’t see the state it’s in every day.

The room is dark, because Richie has yanked their black curtains shut to keep the light out. Though golden sunlight speckles through the dark fabric of the curtains anyway. They’re cheap curtains. The floor is covered in food packaging, lazily discarded shoes and socks, and soda cans. It’s a bit of maze trying to navigate the room without stepping on something. Richie and Eddie make a bit of game whenever he’s over.

But the room is _messy_. Like, walk in here and you feel the air is too heavy to breathe, stifling, claustrophobic, kind of messy. Only made worse by the smoke in the air, clouding low in the middle of the room, lit by the blue-grey glow of the TV screen. Because Richie is currently sitting with one leg hooked over the armrest of their armchair, smoking a joint.

“I think it’s cleaner than yesterday,” Richie says. Inhales around the joint, feels warm down his throat, expands in his chest, before he exhales. He’s only halfway through it, but he’s already got that loose, hazy feeling of being high.

“Have you not checked your phone all day?” Bev asks.

“Phone bad, book good,” Richie says.

“As if you’ve ever read a book in your life.” Then Bev is storming right into the thick of it, scooping about as much junk as she can into her arms.

Richie watches her in a dazed sort of surprise. Bev does complain about the mess every now and then, but she never gets worked up about it. Not like this. _Mike_ gets riled up, and will very heatedly tell the two of them off for leaving their socks everywhere, but Mike’s hardly ever home anymore. He’s gotten a new job, and has recently started dating someone.

“What are you doing?” Richie asks.

“I’m cleaning up, worms-for-brains,” Bev replies.

“Why?”

“Because I don’t want this place to look like a shithole when Eddie comes over.”

And now Richie’s even more confused. Bev has never cared to clean up for Eddie before. It’s not like Eddie’s a _guest. _You can’t call one of your best friends of sixteen years, who basically lives at on your couch anyway, a guest. And Eddie kind of fits into the chaos of the place. Will burst through the front door with a loud “_ayo_” that Richie will echo from the lounge room: “_ayooo_” Richie will crow back, before descending into gorilla sounds, “_oo oo oo_”.

And Eddie will laugh, and get a runup from the front hall so he can jump the height of the back of the couch and stick the landing on the couch cushions. His cargo shorts strapped tightly with a belt around his hips and loose around the middle of his toned thighs; in a shirt that is too big and doesn’t match.

He’ll curse like a sailor and stick his feet all over Richie’s face. Swipe a bag of Doritos from their cupboard and scarf down the whole thing; lick the cheese dust from his fingers and throw the empty bag onto the floor with the rest of the mess.

Eddie never complains about it. Though sometimes he’ll make an offhanded comment about how much tidier his own place is, about how Stan would “have a fucking aneurysm” if he ever came over (“because, you know,” Eddie had said, “this place is a fucking trash dump). He complains about the smoke, though. Because he’s Eddie and he’ll forever be the type of person who coughs loudly whenever he passes a smoker outside a public place to make them feel bad.

And Bev is never embarrassed when she gets home and finds Eddie there, slumped into a mould in the couch that’s roughly the shape and size of his own small body. There’s never a “sorry about the mess!” Instead she’ll just grin as she’s greeted with an obnoxious chant of “BEVBEVBEV” from Richie and Eddie. Will say, fondly, “hello, my idiot little brother,” to Eddie, cupping the sides of his face to smack a loud kiss into his hair, while Eddie privately beams, because he loves when Bev calls him her little brother.

(Richie will say, “hey, where’s my kiss?” when Bev pulls away. And Eddie will look smug and Bev will snort and Richie will pout until she cups his face and smacks a kiss to his hair, too).

So Richie asks now, feeling pretty justified, “Why are you cleaning up for Eddie?”

Bev sighs, straightens up, hands full of Doritos packets (that are all probably Eddie’s). The flush on her neck and chest has spread down her arms, some of her hair is starting to stick to her forehead. “You’d know if you checked your phone.”

“Well I didn’t. It’s dead and I can’t be fucked finding the charger,” Richie says, wiping at his own sweaty forehead. “So? What’s up? Has Eddie finally snapped? Demanded that we clean up for him like the little prince he is?”

It’s funny calling Eddie a prince, since he was sitting here in this stifling, smoky heat, trying to belch out the alphabet just yesterday. But Eddie also likes to, like, file his nails and shit, and he’s never used a public bathroom in his life (or so he says). So.

“No,” says Bev.

“Then what?”

Bev sighs again, but this time without opening her mouth. It’s like she sighs with her body instead, shoulders sagging, chin tilted downwards. Richie is fighting a weed-induced fog in his brain, thoughts slowed, a haze behind his eyes, but this is weird, right? He watches Bev press her lips together and slide them up to her cheek, as though she’s trying to find the right words.

“He’s bringing someone,” she says, finally.

“Who?” Richie asks. And something strange is happening. His heartrate, which had crawled to a very leisurely pace – if he were to close his eyes only a few moments before, he could feel it drumming lazily, a halting _thump…thump…thump_ in his ribs – has started to speed up. “Stan?” Richie guesses lamely.

“No, uh.” Bev hesitates, and it only makes Richie’s heart dislodge from his chest and slide up his throat. Bev is not a person who hesitates.

_Thumpthumpthump. _

She says, meeting Richie’s eye carefully, like she’s worried he’ll break, “He’s bringing his girlfriend.”

And Richie goes still.

One second. Two. It doesn’t sink in, not at first. Because his whole body has seized up to the point where everything just bounces off the hard surface. But then it slithers in through his ears, worms into his brain. Eddie. Girlfriend. Eddie has a girlfriend.

Richie’s tongue tastes sour; his mouth is full of saliva. And he’s already on his feet, bolting toward the bathroom, all that bile rising up in his throat. And, as he hurtles himself towards the toilet, the contents of his stomach, too.

He throws up with his knees collapsed on the cold bathroom floor.

“Oh, Jesus, Richie,” Bev says, from somewhere behind him, and there’s a sympathy in her tone that makes Richie’s stomach twist, like he’s going to hurl again.

“All good,” Richie says. Rests his clammy forehead against the toilet seat. A voice in his head says, _dude, that’s so disgusting. _It’s not hard to guess who that voice belongs to.

He pulls himself to his feet, all his limbs like jelly. Flushes the toilet, staggers over to the sink, splashes cold water all over his sweaty face. Sticks his mouth under the tap and gargles it, spits it out into the sink. Bev watches him from the doorway. She’s not saying anything. That’s because Richie is muttering a mantra of “all good all good all good” under his breath; it’s filling up all the air.

He stops, spins, and looks at Bev.

She says, “Richie.”

“I’m all good,” Richie say again. “I was just feeling a bit nauseous today. Maybe it was some bad weed.”

The sympathy in Bev’s voice is also written all over her face. She parts her lips, trying to find the right words, one eye slightly pinched. And even worse than the pity is the fucking _knowing. _This overwhelming sense that she has some idea of what’s going on right now. And Richie absolutely hates it because he, himself does _not. _

Like, he just fucking _threw up_ and he has no idea _why. _

“So, uh,” Richie tries, goes for casual. But he feels boneless, like there’s nothing inside him but the tight, uncomfortable pressure in his stomach. “Anyway. What’s, um. Eddie’s bringing his girlfriend over.” And that pressure lurches towards his throat again, but he swallows it down. “I thought. Um. He was just going to hang out like usual. Bit of a dick move to spring that on us like this, huh? Are we making dinner for them? That’s an even bigger dick move.”

“Well, he said they were just gonna drop in because she wanted to meet us,” Bev says. “But I figured I’d be polite and offer to make them dinner.”

Richie presses his lips together, nods. That _is _very polite, he thinks. But his vision is starting to swim because his brain’s melted in his skull and he can no longer process any visual information. Bev looks like liquified person made of colour and light.

“Since when does Eddie have a girlfriend anyway?” Richie asks, and it sounds like he’s listening to himself speak from underwater.

“Since about almost three weeks ago, I think,” Bev replies.

Three weeks.

Richie has seen Eddie maybe seven times over the past three weeks. He saw him just two days ago. Eddie, spread length-ways on the couch, taking up so much space that Richie had been half hunched over the armrest just to avoid Eddie’s wild socked feet. His hair had been all fluffy from the humid heat, and he’d been oddly quiet.

Richie had slid a hand under Eddie’s calf, lifted Eddie’s leg up to his face, and had pretended to gnaw at his ankle. “What’s up, Spaghetti?” he’d asked, when Eddie snorted and yanked his leg away. “You’re less annoying than usual.”

“Just tired,” Eddie said. He looked all small and rumpled, leant back against the side of the couch. When he turned his head to look at the TV, Richie could see the muscles were taut in his neck – that slim, tanned neck that always looked kind of inviting.

“Then go home, Eds,” Richie said, tearing his eyes away from where they had begun to dip.Graze over the skin of Eddie’s collarbones, exposed by the loose, hanging collar of Eddie’s too-big shirt.

“Nah,” Eddie said. “I want to stay here a bit.” Then he kicked his feet up into Richie’s lap, and Richie’s hand had automatically come to rest on Eddie’s calf. His palm hot and acutely aware of the feel of Eddie’s skin. Soft, fuzzy from his fair blonde leg hairs.

_That _Eddie had had a girlfriend.

Richie tries to focus, now, on the liquified Bev in front of him. To pin down something solid, steady, in all that blur of light and colour.

But he can’t stop himself from thinking it. A girl who can now call Eddie her own. A _girl. _A girl who can press her lips to Eddie’s inviting neck.

Eddie had sat there with Richie, day after day, and he’d had a _girlfriend. _

Richie’s jaw tingles, his tongue sours.

He hunches back over the toilet, and throws up a second time.

Bev offers to cancel the whole thing.

And she’s a goddamn angel, Bev is, but cancelling would only be admitting that there’s something wrong.

And there isn’t.

Richie’s just been hit with a small round of nausea, that’s all. He jokes to Bev that maybe he’s pregnant, but she only seems half amused. She’s got that strange sense of _knowing_ behind her eyes, that’s makes her all careful and tender when she looks at him.

Richie is starting to feel like he’s the one that’s liquified.

Because there’s nothing to know. It’s just obvious. Eddie is Richie’s best friend, and Richie’s just put out that Eddie kept something from him.

Richie cleans up while Bev makes a start on dinner. Staggers, feeling aimless, around the lounge-room, stuffing junk into a garbage bag. Bev has pulled open the curtains and cranked open the lounge-room window, to let the sunlight in, to air the room out. Everything is way too bright. A fly has let itself in and buzzes somewhere near the TV. Hot summer air crawls in from outside and slides down Richie’s tongue.

He thinks of seeing Eddie, again. Not two days ago, but the day before that. The room had been bright, like it is now, because Eddie had also torn open the curtains. And there’d been a moment where he stood, facing the window, haloed by golden sunlight, and white flecks of dust, dancing around his shoulders. And Richie had joked that he looked like an angel. And Eddie had laughed and said Richie looked like a vampire, because he never got any fucking sunlight.

And maybe there _is_ something else. Maybe there’s something to know.

It’s just that Richie had expected it to always be that way.

That Eddie would come over to spend his Saturdays with Richie until the end of time. That every other night would find Eddie on their couch. That they would live this single, bachelor life together – two losers who can’t get a date, and aren’t looking for one anyway – without any sort of desire for things to be different.

And maybe Richie is projecting all kinds of shit onto Eddie when he thinks that. But maybe he’s not. Because Eddie has been single his whole life – all twenty three years – and he’s never once said anything about it. Because Eddie had skipped out on every single school dance as a kid, didn’t go to Homecoming, or Prom, because he said they were stupid, because he said there was no one he would want to go with, anyway.

He’s never shown any interest in anyone. More specifically, he’s never shown any interest in _girls. _

Even Richie slept with a few girls in college. Like, can you blame him? Girls are hot, he’d been dying to get his hands on a pair of tits for as long as he could remember, college is the place where you do all that shit.

But Eddie never did.

Jesus, as far as Richie’s concerned, Eddie’s still a virgin.

That bile begins to rise up in Richie’s throat again. _Well, _his brain says, _maybe not anymore. _

Richie holds the garbage bag open, sticks his head halfway in, thinking he’s going to throw up again. He doesn’t, but it’s a close thing.

The apartment looks like a whole other place by the time they’re done with it. You can actually see the floor.

Richie showers, brushes his teeth twice to get that gross fucking taste out of his mouth (Eddie had once said that he used to brush his teeth three times a day) (Richie’s not sure why he thinks that, but his mind has always kind of been a Random-Eddie-Fact Generator) and then he decides what to wear.

Well, he spends about thirty seconds lamenting in front of his closet, before he reminds himself that he’s never cared what clothes Eddie has seen in him before. And he doesn’t know why he’d have to pull out any stops for his girlfriend. He shrugs on the usual Hawaiian shirt. 

And then it’s just a matter of waiting. Of listening to Bev clatter around in the kitchen, the hearty smell of whatever she’s cooking wafting in under Richie’s door. Of sitting on the edge of his bed, knee bouncing, trying to get his insides to turn themselves right side up.

And then it’s a matter of getting to his feet. Taking a deep breath in, running a hand over his curls. Because there’s a knock at the door.

Eddie’s girlfriend is pretty.

She bursts in with a flurry, like she knows the place, like she’s been their friend for years. Presses a kiss on Bev’s cheek, pulls Richie in for a hug. Eddie stumbles in after her, because she’s got a tight grip on his hand.

“Oh, Bev,” she says, with a voice like honey. “It smells_ heavenly.” _

She’s blonde, her hair long and straight. Bright blue eyes, glossily painted lips, dangly earrings and bracelets that jangle together. She smells strongly of a very flowery perfume and looks like the kind of clean-cut girl who spends her weekends riding horses; except for Sundays, because that’s when she’s honouring Jesus.

Her name is Hannah.

Next to her, though they are almost exactly the same height, Eddie looks oddly small.

He hasn’t really said anything since they arrived, but Richie’s eyes are drawn to him anyway. Eddie’s shoulders are raised, his head ducked, like he’s trying to shrink into himself. Meets Richie’s gaze briefly before he looks away, all nervous and overshadowed by Hannah’s loud presence.

Bev is very politely making conversation. Richie can’t think of a single thing to say. And the problem isn’t just Hannah, because when the two girls wander over to the kitchen, Hannah offering to help serve up, and it’s just Richie and Eddie left alone, standing awkwardly around the table, Richie can’t find anything to say to Eddie, either.

“I, um.” Richie begins. Eddie’s hands come up to grip the back of one the dining chairs, his knuckles white against the amber wood. He’s staring down at the bottle of wine already placed on the table, Richie can see his jaw twitch as he swallows. “I beat your time. On Rainbow Road.”

Eddie looks up, quirks an off-centre smile. “You did?”

“Yeah.” Richie doesn’t know why he feels so breathless. Eddie’s hair is neat and he’s wearing his best pair of jeans; though he’s paired it all with one his usual baggy, graphic tees. And Richie wonders, vaguely, if Hannah had tried to dress him. Make him look presentable. Considering Richie can hear her telling Bev, quite assuredly, the _proper _way to make lasagna in the kitchen, she seems like the type. But Eddie has never let anyone tell him what to wear; not even back when he was a kid clasped tightly in his mother’s vice-like grip.

He’d walk around Derry in his tube socks and clashing colours. A green shirt with his favourite pair of red shorts. And Richie would make fun of him like he dressed any better himself. He didn’t.

Richie’s always kind of liked Eddie’s horrible fashion sense.

“I’ll have to come back over and beat your time again,” Eddie says.

“Yeah,” Richie says again. Tries not to think about how they could have done that tonight, if only Eddie hadn’t decided to get himself a girlfriend. Tries not to think about that tiny badly dressed Eddie Kaspbrak, and how much Richie wishes he could just go back to that, right now. To when they were kids.

A silence falls between them. Eddie’s white-knuckle grip only whitens. The table has been scrubbed clean, and the light of the room striking it’s shiny surface makes Richie’s eyes burn. But he can’t stop staring at it. Knows that he should say something about all this. Even just a friendly, “your girlfriend’s pretty.” But his stomach hardens to a rock at just the thought.

Instead, he snatches the bottle of wine from the table – it’s already open, Bev had had a glass last night – and takes a swig.

And maybe he feels a little better when, as soon as he puts it down, Eddie reaches out, grabs it, and takes a swig too.

The whole ‘feeling better’ thing doesn’t last very long.

Hannah’s fingers are on Eddie’s wrist.

She’s telling them the story of how she and Eddie met. Here’s the shortened version: she was hired as a receptionist at the mechanic place Eddie works at. Her version sounds like she’s reading from a romance novel.

And she has her _fingers_ pressed affectionately to Eddie’s _wrist._ He was halfway through cutting himself a bite-sized piece of his lasagna, but now his hands are paused, still gripping his cutlery, because he can’t move with her hand there. He doesn’t try to move her hand away.

He _does_ move his gaze over to Richie, though. In short, sporadic intervals. His eyes are anxious and his forehead is pinched. It looks like he’s trying to gauge Richie’s reaction; and at some point it hits Richie that Eddie would want him to be reacting positively. Would want Richie to _like_ Hannah. Because Richie is his best friend and Hannah is his girlfriend, and any normal person would want them to get along.

So they can, like, all hang out in the future. Or what-the-fuck-ever.

Richie avoids his gaze. And he’s trying to eat, but he can’t stomach anything other than a few mousey bites. He’s throwing back wine like he’s taking shots a bar, though. His mind is starting to get pleasantly foggy, softens everything around the edges. Can almost ignore the way Hannah and Eddie are touching.

From the corner of his eye, he can see Bev giving him a look. Like a real capital L, _Look. _It reminds him of the look his mother used to slice at him from across the dining table when he was a kid and climbing all over his seat instead of eating dinner. It says _behave. _

Richie is sure that he’s behaving. He hasn’t said anything stupid all night. He’s barely said anything at all.

But then he catches himself glaring at Hannah, wine glass tipped to his mouth. And he realises his shoulders are squared and his fist his clenched and that he’s coming across all kinds of hostile.

So he puts his glass down, swipes the back of his hand across his mouth and says, going for friendly, “so, Hannah, has Eddie told you about the four major types of germs yet? Or the importance of watching your fibre intake?”

Hannah laughs, it jangles her glittery earrings. “He’s told me about the germs,” she says.

Richie feels kind of warm, that Eddie is always so unabashedly himself. But then he feels weird that Eddie is out being himself with people who aren’t Richie. And the rest of the Losers, of course.

“It was kind of endearing. What were the four germs, again? Bacteria – aww he’s embarrassed,” Hannah coos. Because Eddie has raised his shoulders around his ears, his face going a little red.

Richie flashes him a grin – a flustered Eddie is always amusing – and Eddie levels that with a glare. An exchange so tried and true it’s like falling back into Richie’s skin.

"It's important to know shit like that," Eddie says, defensive. And Richie starts to laugh. But then Hannah reaches over, smiling fondly, and presses a kiss to Eddie’s cheek.

And Richie thinks of the one thing he’s been trying so fucking hard not think of all night.

Because, well. With the image of Hannah leant over Eddie’s side, glossy mouth to Eddie’s flushed face. It’s hard not to wonder.

_Have_ they had sex?

Richie can’t imagine it. Not that he’s trying to. Or wants to. Hannah pulls away. And looking at them now, Eddie staring silently down at his food, Hannah chatting animatedly to Bev, Richie can’t even imagine them kissing. Like, Hannah kissing Eddie, as enthusiastically as she talks, and Eddie kissing her back with the same enthusiasm.

Richie thinks back to his own kisses, his own hook-ups. Can remember, once, bringing a girl back to dorm after a party in college. And he’d pushed her up against the door as soon as they’d entered the room; her arms looping around his neck, his hands hungry on the bare skin of her midriff. Their breathing was heavy and Richie’s whole body was hot and their limbs were fumbley from the alcohol but their mouths were desperate and she’d walked him back toward the bed while he sucked on her neck.

It’d been one of his better hook-ups.

Richie tries to switch himself out for Eddie, the girl out for Hannah, in his mind. And it’s like there’s a computer error. His brain won’t let him see the image. He sees Eddie with his hands on Hannah’s midriff, but it doesn’t even look he’s touching actually touching her, and then there’s nothing at all. It reappears for a second and the Eddie in his mind leans his head in toward Hannah’s neck as though he’s being pushed, but it’s like trying to force together two repelling magnets, he only pulls away.

Because it doesn’t _work. _It doesn’t fucking work. Eddie and Hannah. Eddie and…

Eddie and a girl.

And then Richie’s mind truly glitches. And he is himself again, in the memory of that hook-up. But Eddie is the one pushed up against the door. But Richie has his hands on Eddie’s waist. There’s no repelling, no pulling away. Richie’s mouth is on Eddie’s neck, and his body feels so fucking hot, like he’s burning up from the inside, as he sucks on Eddie’s skin.

Richie jumps to his feet so quickly he knocks his knees against the table and sends his cutlery clattering to the floor.

“Jesus,” Bev says, with a jolt. Richie is already bending down to pick his knife and fork up, hands shaking. “You okay, Rich?”

“Uh. Yep!” Nope. His heart is in his throat and his stomach is rolling; like he’s about to throw up again. Can feel Hannah and Eddie looking at him, but he stares pointedly at Bev. Her red, pursed mouth. It begins to drip in his vision, as though it’s melting. “Just. Feeling a little sick. You know how I wasn’t feeling too good, earlier. Think I might go lie down in my room for a bit.”

“O-oh, okay,” Bev starts. And Richie makes the mistake of looking away from her dripping red mouth. He looks at Eddie. Who is looking at him. Brow furrowed, head cocked. Richie’s gaze drops to Eddie’s neck. And the light drips, too, like honey, all over Eddie’s golden skin.

Richie thinks of his mouth on that skin.

And then he pictures Hannah, from where she’s seated now. Leaning over again, hand curling, sultry, on the back of Eddie’s chair, and pressing her glossy lips to Eddie’s neck instead. Like that’s the only image of Eddie and Hannah together that Richie’s brain will allow. 

Richie’s whole body lurches.

He barely makes it to the bathroom in time.

And that’s how Richie ends up collapsed on his bed, shaky and clammy, having thrown up three times in one day, at the end of the night.

He lies on his back, lights off because his brain feels like it’s shrivelled up in his skull, and stares up into black. His whole body is drenched in sweat, hair clamped down at his temples, his shirt stuck like a second skin to his back. Can hear the warbled sounds of Bev and Hannah and Eddie finishing up their dinner. Mostly just hears the battering of his own heart.

There’s something really fucking wrong with him.

Maybe he smoked too much weed this afternoon. Maybe he drank too much wine.

Doesn’t really explain why his pulse jolts when there’s a soft knock at his door, and Eddie enters his room.

“Hey,” Eddie says, softly. He lets all this bright light in behind him, and Richie’s brain spikes with sharp pain, squeezes his eyes shut. Thinks maybe he’ll just keep them shut forever. Fall asleep and not talk to Eddie at all. There’s a small _click_ as Eddie pushes the door closed. Thoughtful of him. “You alright?”

“Just splendid, Eds,” Richie says, and opens his eyes. Eddie is a fuzzy, grey figure across the room, bathed in shadow. Small and drawn in on himself. His nervousness bleeds out into every corner of the room, feels like prickly, black-and-white TV static. Richie swallows it, feels it buzz beneath his ribs. And maybe it’s the strange jittery energy he gets from that, or just because it’s easier in the dark, but he says, “you have a girlfriend.”

A weird shaky breathe escapes Eddie’s mouth. “Yeah,” he says.

“Bev said you’ve been dating for almost three weeks.”

Little shadow-figure Eddie shifts, like he’s shuffling his feet.

“Bit weird that you didn’t tell me,” Richie adds, and the heat in his words is unintentional, but it’s there.

“I was going to,” Eddie says. “I, uh. I mean, Hannah and I have only really gone out a couple of times. We only really made things official a few days ago.”

“And you’re already bringing her over to meet us?” Richie snorts lamely, trying to pretend like the phrase ‘made things official’ didn’t get lodged like glass in his own throat.

Eddie throws his hands in the air, two white blurs in the dark. “I don’t know! She wanted to go out tonight, but I told her I already had plans to hang out here, so she just kind of invited herself along. And, I dunno. I’m new to this whole relationship thing, okay? I have no idea what’s, like, acceptable or not.”

Richie can kind of see the merit of that. “You could’ve at least told me you were seeing a girl,” he says.

“Well, I didn’t, okay?” Eddie says, a bite to his tone. “I just didn’t see why I had to.”

Which. Is fucking stupid. Because they've always told each other everything. That's kind of always been the Losers' _thing. _Never being afraid of telling each other the truth. And Eddie's never shied away from it. Whether it be him very bluntly telling Ben which parts of the clubhouse he thought were unsafe ("this looks it's five seconds from crumbling, Ben," Eddie would say, pointing at a very stable looking support beam), or him confessing to them that he'd been manipulated to think he was sick by his mother.

And it's _especially_ been a thing for Richie and Eddie. They'd tell each other things they didn't tell the others. Richie told Eddie about his embarrassingly bad first kiss almost immediately after he had it. Richie confessed to Eddie that he never liked his glasses and wished he could get contacts. Eddie told Richie that was so nervous about getting his driver's license that he almost didn't want it. Eddie told Richie that he didn't like going to school dances because he had no interest in dancing with girls, Eddie told Richie that he would rather go to the quarry, just the two of them, and get drunk instead. 

Richie's about to say this when there’s a shout of laughter from out in the kitchen, Hannah, that makes them instinctively look toward the bedroom door. Eddie looks away after only a second. But Richie’s gaze lingers, already completely distracted. Because Eddie. The door. His brain stupidly puts them together again, in that memory of his hook-up. Eddie against the door. Eddie under Richie’s hands. Eddie’s arms looped around Richie’s neck. But then Richie’s pulling Eddie flush against him and Eddie is sighing into Richie’s mouth and Richie can’t fucking remember if that’s part of the original memory.

Fuck. Fuckfuck. His brain needs to stop fucking glitching. He says, not even remembering what Eddie had said, all pent-up energy, “Whatever.”

Eddie’s body seizes up. “And I don’t see why you care so much.”

And Richie is sitting up, not really thinking. But a kind of anger overtaking him at the…_insinuation _of that. Shadow-figure Eddie flinches at the suddenness of the movement. “Maybe because I want to know shit about your life, Eds. It’s just fucking weird that you wouldn’t tell me about this. I’d tell you if I was seeing a girl. I always do.” 

“Well, maybe I don’t like when you tell me that shit,” Eddie snaps back.

“What the fuck does that mean?”

And if Richie looks hard enough, he swears he can see Eddie’s face in the dark. Dimly lit and a little out of focus, like looking at a face security camera footage. But Richie can still see the way Eddie’s eyes go wide. The rest of his face is frozen, before he begins to work his mouth over words that don’t ever leave his throat.

That static nervousness bleeds from Richie now, replaces his anger. He says, “Eds – ”

“I have a girlfriend,” Eddie interrupts. “And her name is Hannah. That’s me telling you.”

And then he turns, pulls open the door, fills the room with light. And then he steps out, slams the door shut, and everything falls back to black.

And then he’s gone.

* * *

Richie gets the flu.

Or something like that.

He spends the next five days in bed, and he doesn’t really eat anything, unless you count weed as a meal, and he doesn’t really shower, unless you count wiping the sweat from your face with your bedsheet as cleaning yourself, and he’s fucking sick.

His bedroom door remains shut, because he doesn’t want to talk to anyone. His lights remain off. Every day just kind of passes in a blur of smoke and grey. Richie’s pretty sure that both Bev and Mike have come in to check on him at multiple points, but Richie was too high to really register anything, just the vague shape of their faces, the soothing, steadiness of Mike’s voice. He’d found a glass of water and a sandwich on his bedside table, too. But he doesn’t know which of his roomies he needs to thank.

Everything is kind of miserable and horrible and he hates the feeling of his skin being damp all the time, his hair always stuck to the back of his neck. It’s just that there’s nothing in him that can get himself up. Pull himself to his feet. His whole body feels like it’s full of lead. If he lifts his head too quickly, he swears he almost passes out.

Because he’s _sick. _

“Like, I’m fucking dying, Mikey,” Richie grumbles into his pillow one night. Not quite high enough to not register Mike standing in his doorway. “Don’t come too close, it’s the flu.”

Mike sighs, hand resting on the doorknob, like he’s Richie’s overworked father or something. “You need to take better care of yourself, dude.”

“Wow, way to victim-blame,” Richie says. 

“If anyone’s a victim here it’s me,” Mike says. Checks his phone. “I’m gonna be late for my date.”

Just the word _date_ is enough to make Richie’s skin crawl. He rolls over onto his side and asks, because he’s an idiot, “have you met Eddie’s girlfriend?”

“No, but I’ve heard she’s nice.” Something about that is reassuring – it’s the part where Mike said no. Mike seems distracted. “Look, I’m heading out and Bev’s already gone. So just don’t die, okay?” Mike says. Richie promises he won’t. Mike shuts the door and leaves Richie in an empty house.

Richie groans, burying his face in his pillow. Lies on his stomach, all his blankets kicked off because the room is all humid and muggy. And he kind of wishes, for a second, that he was out, too. He’s in between jobs at the moment, and has been enjoying the freedom of unemployment. Spends most of his days at home, beating every videogame he owns.

But being locked up in his room for six days has started to take a toll on him.

This morning, he had started talking to the ceiling, because some of the cracks in the paint looked a bit like a face.

Quite possibly the only reason unemployment has been so good to him is because Eddie was so willing to come over almost every day.

Speaking of, Richie has been very consciously trying to _not_ think about Eddie these past few days. Which has been surprisingly easy, considering he hasn’t heard from Eddie at all since dinner, and considering his stomach lurches whenever he lingers anything Eddie related for too long, so his brain is beginning to learn not to linger.

Richie’s phone buzzes against his bedside table.

Richie fumbles for it without pulling his face from his pillow. His hot breath is trapped between his face and the fabric; he could suffocate like this. But then he rolls over, turns his phone on, and squints up at the little rectangle of light in the dark.

It’s a text from Eddie.

Richie pauses. But it’s really only for a second. Because, yeah, he’s been trying not to think of Eddie, but that doesn’t mean he hasn’t like, missed hanging out with him and all that. That he doesn’t want to talk to him. And so he hurries to unlock his phone so quickly it almost slips from his grip.

**Spagheds **

_hey_

_i still need to beat your time on rainbow road_

Richie stares, eyes straining, at the text for a full five minutes. Kind of at a loss. Like he said, he hasn’t heard from Eddie since dinner. Six days ago. Or maybe seven. Richie’s lost count. But the point is. Their last conversation had been…well it hadn’t been a fight. But there’d been some tension to it. Enough for Richie to wonder if they were still on good terms.

So the casualness of Eddie’s text gives him a bit of whiplash, that’s all.

He’s not complaining, though.

He texts back, _like you could ever beat a master like me eds lmao_

**Spagheds**

_i could. easy peasy. _

_you doing anything right now? i’ll come over_

Everything in Richie screams at him to say he’s not doing anything, that Eddie _should_ come over.

But instead he replies, _cant. im sick. dont want you getting it too. _Because he _is_ sick, and it _is_ very possible that if Eddie came over, he’d catch it. Like, why would Richie be bedridden for how many days if he wasn’t actually sick?

And then Eddie is calling him. And Richie is immediately pressing the phone to his ear.

“Whaddup, Eds?” Richie greets, and he sounds a little breathless, but mostly his voice is rough and croaky, because he has hardly used it all over the past week. 

“Jesus,” Eddie says, “you sound terrible.”

“That’s so kind of you to say.”

“So, what is it?” Eddie asks, ignoring him. “The flu? Bev said that you’d been coming down with something, but she made it sound like it wasn’t that bad. But that was, like, four days ago. It must be pretty bad if you’re still really sick.”

Richie finds that face on the ceiling. It looks a little demonic, in the dark. Jagged mouth, narrowed eyes. He wonders if the reason he hasn’t heard from Eddie was really just because Eddie had thought he’d been sick.

It definitely beats the other thought he’d had. The one that has plagued him for six days. That Eddie was with his girlfriend. In her house in her car in her bed.

“Yeah, it’s the flu. Think I’m finally starting to see the end of it though,” Richie says.

“Have you been drinking enough fluids?” Eddie asks.

“Yeah, I threw back a bottle of Scotch just an hour ago.”

“Water. Idiot,” Eddie says, but he sounds a little amused. “You need to be drinking water.”

And something in Richie’s throat feels tight. His phone is all slippery against the side of his sweaty face, clutched in his sweaty hand. Some part of him wants to snap at Eddie and he doesn’t know why. Some part of him wants to say, jaw all locked, _“why are you worrying about me, Eddie? Worry about your girlfriend.” _

But that’s fucking stupid. Because Eddie is his friend and he always takes care of him, Eddie always takes care of everyone. With his brow knitted and his mouth set determinedly in a line. Little Eddie Kaspbrak who somehow managed to fit a whole lot of bite and a whole lot of kindness in that tiny body; wandering around with a fannypack even when he learnt his pills were all fake, because he liked knowing he could patch any of them up if they ever needed it.

So Richie doesn’t snap at him. He buries his face half in his pillow, feeling achey and weird in his chest, says, “Eddie, baby, you don’t have to worry about me. I’ve already got my dad Mikey Hanlon nurturing me tenderly back to health.” And he tries for a light, jokey tone. But his voice is all rough and deep, sounds like he hasn’t slept in days. Because he hasn’t.

On the other end of the line, Eddie has fallen silent.

“Okay,” he says finally, and his voice is strangely quiet. “Well. Don’t die, okay?”

That sounds a bit like a goodbye, and Richie doesn’t want to stop talking yet. “I won’t. I’ll drink water, Eds, I promise. Though they really do need a find a way to spice water up. It’s so boring.”

“Sparkling water,” Eddie says.

“That’s the devil’s water.”

Eddie huffs a small laugh. He seems distracted. “I have to go,” he says. “Talk later?”

“Yeah, ‘course,” Richie says, but Eddie’s already hung up.

What’s the bet, Richie thinks bitterly, letting his phone drop to his pillow, that his _girlfriend_ had turned up. That his girlfriend had sent him a text. That his girlfriend had tried to call him, too.

Another six days of being sick doesn’t seem impossible.

In the end, it’s only three more days. Because on the third, Richie gets another two texts from Eddie. He gets them in the morning. And he’s only half awake as he rolls over onto his back, squints against the sunlight, and checks his phone.

The first text just says, _hey. _

The seconds says,

_i broke up with hannah. _

And Richie is suddenly cured.

* * *

In all honesty, Richie thinks he could have gone his whole life without ever mentioning the whole girlfriend debacle at all.

Like, Richie was incredibly ready and willing to sweep the whole thing under the rug.

But two weeks later, Eddie wears a pair of shorts, and Richie runs his mouth, and the whole thing gets brought up again.

It doesn’t make much sense when you explain it, either.

It had started like this:

Richie sitting on his couch, because where the fuck else is he these days.

It was dark, a Friday night. The curtains were drawn but the window was open, breathing a warm summer breeze into the room, the sound of cicadas, a faraway scent of smoky barbeque. The room was lit by the glow of the TV screen, all fuzzy blue-and-green light bathing over the carpet, the joint of Richie’s thumbs on his controller.

A door opened down the hall and there was the soft patting of bare feet against floorboards.

And the room blacked-out as an Eddie-shaped moon eclipsed in front of the television screen.

“Ooh,” Eddie said. “You made it to level four. This shit’s hard.”

Eddie was sleeping over, because Stan had kicked him out the house – said he was bringing someone home – and he’d jumped from the couch about fifteen minutes ago to shower and change into his pyjamas.

Richie craned against the side of the couch, trying to see around him. “Move out the fucking way, dude. You’re gonna make me die.”

“Yeah, oops, you’re already dead,” Eddie said, and then he turned, and Richie had to wonder if Eddie meant dead in real life or the game.

Because Eddie was wearing shorts.

And not his mid-length cargo shorts, like he usually wore – the ones that reached mid-thigh, or sometimes all the way down to his knees. No, Eddie had changed into a pair of _short_ shorts. Soft, cotton, thighs-all-out, short shorts.

He’d paired them with one of his usual baggy shirts. A little baggier than usual, so he’d half-tucked the hem into his waistband of his shorts. Looked fresh-faced and flushed from his shower, hair a little damp. _Skin _a little damp – the blue light of the TV gleaming over the smooth expanse of his bare thigh.

Richie’s mouth tasted strange and he realised he was salivating. He didn’t think it was in the way he salivated before he threw up, though, this time.

Because the thing was, Eddie had worn shorts like these all throughout their teens years, and Richie had always kind of noticed.

It wasn’t like, anything _weird_ or whatever. There was just a point, when Richie was maybe fourteen or so, where Richie had looked at Eddie’s legs in his shorts and had thought, huh, Eddie’s legs. And then he had kept looking. For years. But that was all. Just looking. Summer would roll around and Eddie would bring the shorts out and they’d be on their bikes riding to the quarry and Richie’s gaze would drop to the way Eddie’s legs moved as they rode. They’d be in Richie’s bedroom and Eddie would be sitting on Richie’s bed with his legs stretched out in front him and Richie’s eyes would map out the way the hem of Eddie’s shorts sat on his thighs.

He’d touched Eddies legs a couple of times, too. Mostly when they were in the hammock together and their bodies were all kinds of intertwined. Richie would let his hand rest of Eddie’s calf and stare at the way his pale hand looked against Eddie’s tanned skin. Sometimes when they were sitting together, Richie would reach over and playfully squeeze Eddie’s knee.

But, like, that was _it._ Not a big deal.

Sitting there, then, looking at Eddie’s legs in a pair of short shorts for the first time in a long time, Richie’s stomach had swooped in a way that made it feel like a bit of big deal.

“You gonna hit respawn?” Eddie asked, climbing onto the couch. He sat with his legs crossed in front of him, like he _wanted_ them to be on display.

“Oh, yeah. Uh.” Richie shook himself out of it, turned his attention back to his game. It wasn’t just Eddie’s legs, though. Richie mashed the controller buttons, tried to focus, but he couldn’t. It was Eddie, freshly showered, all comfortable in his pyjamas. It was Eddie standing in front of the TV, because he always has to be annoying. It was Eddie.

And Richie had tried to sweep the whole Hannah thing under the rug, but he hadn’t been able to stop himself from thinking about his own reaction. He hadn’t been able to stop himself from thinking about _why_ he had been so funny about Eddie dating. He hadn’t been able to stop from himself worrying about Eddie dating another girl again. 

“You still talk to Hannah?” Richie asked, suddenly, without looking away from the TV screen.

“Uh. Yeah. She’s still the receptionist at my work, so.”

“Oh, shit.” Richie spared a quick glance. Eddie was picking at a loose thread in his shorts. “That must be awkward.”

“Kinda.”

Richie swallowed. He didn’t even know why he brought it up. But he also knew that that wasn’t the thing he had wanted to ask.

On screen, he died. A red and bloody _Game Over_ glaring out at him. Instead of respawning, he fell back against the cushions, gripped his controller tight in his lap, and lolled his head against the back of the couch to look at Eddie. And he said, “you never told me why you broke up with her.”

Eddie stopped playing with his shorts, looked at Richie. And Eddie’s eyes are something that Richie’s always noticed, too. Kind of perpetually-wide, a deep chocolate brown, framed with long lashes. “I just wasn’t that into her, I guess.”

“No?”

“No,” Eddie said, in a way that sounded like ‘yeah’. They were still looking at each other. But then Eddie started fidgeting, squirming, like he was uncomfortable. Or embarrassed. He glanced back at the TV and the red of the _Game Over_ washed all over his face. Richie waited. It looked as though Eddie was going to say something. But Eddie didn’t. So Richie respawned and kept playing. Hyper aware of every little move he made in the game. Eddie is ten times better at videogames than Richie is, even though Richie plays them way more, and it makes Richie overthink the way he plays when Eddie watches. Like he wants to impress him, like Eddie would judge him for being bad. Eddie doesn’t judge, but he is a bit of a backseat player.

“You gotta use more dodge more,” Eddie said, then. But it didn’t have the confident, almost snappy tone it usually did. He sounded quiet. And Richie wasn’t looking at him, was staring so fixedly at the TV that all the colours were all starting blur together; but it was like Richie could _feel_ the tension rolling off Eddie in waves. Made Richie’s shoulders clench up. He mashed the dodge button.

Eddie swallowed so loudly that Richie could hear it. “And something else happened.”

It felt disjointed from their previous conversation, but Richie knew that it was continuation of it.

Richie looked back at Eddie. Only meant to be a glance, but his gaze got stuck. Eddie was still staring at the TV, and Richie could see a muscle jumping in his jaw. All tightly wound. But when Eddie met Richie’s gaze, he only looked nervous.

He said, face going red, whether because of another _Game Over_ flashed across the screen, or because he was blushing, Richie didn’t know, “I kissed a guy.”

All the air in Richie’s lungs escaped his chest at once.

He didn’t say anything. He couldn’t. His body had locked up at the joints and everything inside him had emptied out and it was like learning Eddie had a girlfriend all over again. And Eddie looked panicked at his silence, his eyes growing impossibly wider, and started talking instead. “I just. Look, okay, don’t freak out, but I had felt all weird about being with Hannah because I felt like I didn’t even like her that much. And every time she tried to kiss me I would, like, shrivel up. And I didn’t want to admit it to myself, so I let her make things official between us and invite herself to meet you guys, but I…well...I knew deep down that the problem was that she’s a girl. But, like I said, I just couldn’t face it. Until….” He broke off, looking even more embarrassed. “I don’t know, something just changed. I realised there was no way the whole Hannah thing could last because I was already miserable and it’d only been _three weeks_. And so I got drunk and I headed to that fucking gay bar downtown and got even more drunk. And I decided to see if the problem really _was_ because Hannah’s a girl. So I kissed the first dude to flirt with me and. Yep. That was the problem. And so I broke up with her the next day.”

Eddie took a deep breath. Richie blinked. The TV screen went onto standby, plunging everything into darkness.

“Oh,” Richie said.

Eddie huffed out a laugh. “Yeah,” he said. “Oh.”

And that wasn’t what Richie wanted to say. But his whole head was swimming; he felt dizzy, off-kilter. Eddie was gay. And that, surprisingly, wasn’t a huge surprise. Richie is sure he always kind of knew. What with Eddie’s complete disinterest in girls. And Richie’s all exhaustive knowledge of everything Eddie. But Eddie had kissed a guy. And that felt like a bit of a sucker punch; Richie’s brain frantically scrambling to conjure up the image.

He’d kissed a guy to _discover_ himself, hissed some other part of Richie’s brain. There was absolutely no reason for Richie to get worked up about that.

“Hey, as long as you’re happy, man,” Richie said, finally. “I’m happy for ya.” He reached over and squeezed Eddie knee, palm sweaty – and not from the stuffiness of the room – in that casual, light way he would squeeze Eddie’s knee as a teenager.

A smile touched on corner of Eddie’s mouth. “Thanks,” he said. Richie pulled away, Eddie pulled a couch cushion into his lap and rubbed the corner of it between his fingers. A silence fell between them. Eddie’s always had nimble little fingers. His hands are small but slender, and can hold you in an iron grip. Richie remembered all the times Eddie had dug his fingers into Richie’s arm to stop him from doing something stupid, all the times Eddie had wrapped a hand around Richie’s wrist.

Richie tried not to think of Eddie’s hand wrapped around something else. 

“There’s more, though,” Eddie said suddenly. 

Oh Jesus fucking Christ.

“I, um.” Eddie hesitated. “Well, you tell me stories about all your hook-ups so I don’t see why I can’t do the same,” he said, more to himself than Richie. “But yeah, I haven’t just kissed that one guy. I, uh, hooked-up with another guy. Just three days ago. We just like, made out. And grinded a little. He looked like a skinnier, uglier version of Liam Hemsworth. It was kinda wild. But I got his number and I don’t know if I should call him.”

Then he looked up at Richie so quickly it’s a surprise he didn’t hurt his neck, as though trying his gauge his reaction.

But, sorry, Richie wasn’t available at the moment, call again later. Because, like, Richie really had been absolutely knocked out of his own body. Only he could still feel his fucking mouth filling with fucking saliva and his fucking throat getting all tight and his fucking stomach churning over and over and over.

_No don’t call him, _Richie thought,_ no don’t ever see him again._ And no,_ don’t let him put his hands on you, nonononono- _

“Sorry,” Eddie said, embarrassed. “Too much information.”

“No,” Richie said, and it came out embarrassingly like a gasp. “No, it’s cool, man. Like I said before, with the whole Hannah thing. I want you to tell me shit.”

Except Richie didn’t want to hear any of this.

Eddie nodded. Pressed his lips together. He looked thoughtful, but not as though he had noticed Richie’s current meltdown, so that was an upside. “Well, he also gave me a hickey,” Eddie said.

And then he leaned over, tugging down the collar of his t-shirt, and bared his neck.

It’s a wonder Richie didn’t pass out.

Instead, Richie’s whole stomach leapt into his throat and he clamped his mouth shut, breathed heavily through his nose. And he could see, even in the dim light, a fading dark mark on Eddie’s all-too-inviting neck, in the crook where it met his shoulder.

“See?” Eddie whispered. Richie could see. It was all he could fucking see. And Eddie wasn’t moving away.

And then Richie did something that was so fucking stupid. He lifted his hand between them, slow and shaking. And he curled his fingers over Eddie’s shoulder. Paused, waited. Eddie didn’t move. Richie pointedly didn’t look at his face. Just at his own hand, fingers buried in the fabric of Eddie’s shirt. And, his whole body buzzing, he brushed over that mark with his thumb. A graze of his skin against Eddie’s.

In the corner of Richie’s eye, he could see Eddie’s eyes flutter closed. With his entire fucking being, he could hear a sound escape Eddie’s mouth. A hitch of breath.

Richie pressed his thumb over the mark, as though trying to cover it. And in his mind he could hear Eddie making that sound as the mouth that made that mark attached itself to Eddie’s skin.

Jesus fucking Christ, Richie thought again. Or maybe he said it. And then he leapt to his feet and bolted to the bathroom before he could throw up all over the lounge-room floor.

Richie’s brain has the opposite problem of the one he had had when trying to imagine Eddie and Hannah.

There’s no computer error. Nothing in his brain glitching, like it when it had struggled to create an image of Eddie and Hannah kissing, touching each other.

Richie can see the image of Eddie and Mr Ugly-Skinny Liam Hemsworth clear as fucking day.

He stands in the shower now, after that whole stupid ordeal. Water hot, leaving his shoulders raw, arms red and blotchy. The air curling up with steam, makes the air thick and heavy to breathe. Lets his hair hang like a dark, wet curtain over his face, closes his eyes.

And there is an image of Eddie. Wearing what he’s wearing now, though Richie knows he wouldn’t have been. On his back on a bed, hair fanned out against the pillow beneath his head, though Richie knows it would’ve happened up against the dirty wall of a seedy club.

And there’s a man between Eddie’s legs, hunched over him, hand by Eddie’s head. Ugly Liam Hemsworth. And they’re kissing. Like real hot, opened mouthed kissing. Ugly Liam trails his mouth down to Eddie’s neck, brings his other hand up to Eddie’s waist and slips his hand under Eddie’s shirt. Richie can almost feel it, the warmth of Eddie’s skin under his palm, the way Eddie shivers under the touch, like it’s him instead. Can almost see the sliver of Eddie’s stomach as his shirt rides up, like he’s looking down on Eddie from above.

In the shower, Richie’s breathing grows laboured. Exhales out from his mouth, places a hand on the bathroom wall, cold, slippery tiles. To keep himself up.

_Just made out, _Eddie had said, on the couch. _And grinded a little. _

And so, in Richie’s mind, Ugly Liam rolls his hips down, and Eddie bucks his hips up. And when their crotches meet in the middle, Eddie’s breath hitches in that fucking way it had before, his head thrown back, and Ugly Liam takes the opportunity to suck on his neck. Roll his hips down again. And Richie’s hand burns on the cold tiles and his stomach burns up like he’s swallowed a spoonful of hot coals and when it twists over itself he can’t tell if it’s because he’s going to throw up again or if it’s because he wants to get a hand around himself.

Richie turns the water cold and lets it strike him in the face. Until he cools off, until he can breathe. And then he gets out.

He dries himself off and dresses in his room, pulls on an old shirt and a flimsy pair of pyjama pants, long enough to bunch up around the tops of his feet. Considers just staying in his room. Crawling into bed, stuffing his face in a pillow and suffocating himself to sleep. But it feels like a real dick move, just leaving Eddie out there by himself. Especially considering Eddie had _come out to him_ all of twenty minutes ago, and all Richie did was freak out, throw up, and then lock himself in the bathroom and almost jerk himself off in the shower. Like, ground control to Major Idiot, stop being weirdly selfish and confusingly horny and go be a good friend. Also, you fucking suck.

When Richie enters the lounge-room, Eddie is playing from where Richie had left off. But he pauses the game when he sees Richie.

“You okay?” Eddie asks.

Richie tries very hard not to look at Eddie’s neck, or his legs – which are still crossed on the couch. “Think I’m coming down with a life-threatening illness.”

Eddie’s face pinches. Which makes it easier to look at his face and _only_ at his face; Richie’s always loved that pinched look. Spent his whole childhood, all his teenage years, trying to conjure up that pinched look. “Is it Dumbass Disease?”

“No it’s chlamydia and I caught it from your mom.”

“That’s not life-threatening, idiot.”

“Mine is. Your mom’s _nasty_.”

The corner of Eddie’s mouth curves, tugs upwards; a smile threatening to break through his scrunched-up expression. “You’re such an asshole.” He says it affectionately. Gestures the coffee table. “I got you some water. _Don’t_ try and chug it. You’ll make yourself sick again.”

“Thanks,” Richie says. Flops down on the couch – Eddie must’ve moved closer to the centre of it, because Richie knocks against Eddie’s knee as he does. “But don’t worry, I’m not sick. My stomach’s just been a bit off, that’s all.” Eddie shrugs. For some reason, Richie thinks back to Bev's knowing look, after Richie had thrown up the first time. And he wonders if maybe it's obvious that he's not really sick at all. That this is something else.

He grabs the water from the coffee table; it’s cold, ice clacking together in the glass. His mouth suddenly feels like the Sahara, and he could’ve thrown the whole thing back easily. But he sips at it like Eddie instructed him too.

Eddie presses resume on the game and keeps playing.

And they don’t say anything more about Hannah, or Ugly Liam Hemsworth, or Richie being sick. Richie debates whether to bring up the whole coming out thing again, so he can give a far more thoughtful, supportive answer, but Eddie seems content on beating the level. He probably doesn’t want it to be treated like a big deal, and Richie’s fine to comply with that.

And then it could almost be a typical night, after all that. Richie’s always liked it; the way he and Eddie can just fall back into normal. Everything between them is worn and familiar; easy to slip into. Eddie plays until he gets tired and hands the controller over to Richie. Curls his legs in toward the chest and watches. Murmurs the occasional piece of advice.

_Almost _a typical night, though, because Richie’s mind is playing him a highlights reel of his thoughts in the shower, and that’s not so typical.

Time crawls by at a leisurely pace, as it always does during summer, but it’s getting later. Late enough that night begins to cool, a gentle breeze puffing in from window. Though it’s still hot and sticky on the couch, especially with Eddie sitting so much closer than before. Especially with Richie’s thoughts wandering into heated places.

Richie plays until his vision gets fuzzy, eyes growing heavy. He keeps dying; Eddie got him all the way up to a really hard boss battle, and he’s too drowsy to focus on it properly. Could just fall asleep here on the couch, with the cooling breeze breathing against his sweaty face. Could just fall…

He feels a weight on his shoulder. Eddie. Eddie, who’s fallen asleep and has let his cheek rest against Richie.

And suddenly Richie is wide awake.

“Eds,” Richie says. Eddie doesn’t say anything. Richie shrugs his shoulder under Eddie’s weight, but Eddie doesn’t so much as stir. “Eddie.”

Somehow, Eddie is already out cold. Richie doesn’t want to dwell on all the things Eddie could’ve been up all night doing, to make him tired like this.

“I guess we should call it a night,” Richie says, talking out into dark, empty air. He can only really see the top of Eddie’s head, his fluffy air-dried hair, when he cranes down at him. “You wanna take my bed? This couch isn’t very comfortable.”

It seems pointless to ask, but Eddie makes a little sleepy sound into Richie’s shoulder, so Richie takes that as a yes.

“Okay, you gonna get up?” Eddie doesn’t. “Okay.”

Richie wriggles out from under him, gets to his feet. Eddie’s chin dips, head hanging, still asleep. Which is maybe ridiculously cute.

And there’s two options here: leave Eddie on the couch or take him to bed. A third option of waking Eddie up and letting him get to his bed on his own is also on the cards, but Richie is already sliding an arm under Eddie’s knees, the other under Eddie’s back, and picking him up.

Richie’s not particularly strong, but Eddie is relatively light, so he’s easy to carry. Richie’s picked him up a bunch of times; would loop his around Eddie’s middle and spin him off his feet whenever he saw him, has thrown Eddie over his shoulder, fire-fighter style- just to laugh at the way Eddie shouted at him to put him down; has given Eddie piggyback rides, just for the fun of it.

Eddie’s head lolls against Richie’s chest as he moves to his bedroom, and this is definitely way different to all those other times.

Richie’s room is light by his bedside lamp, all soft and golden, but startlingly bright after being in the dark lounge-room all night. Richie squints against the light, makes his way over to the bed, and then stops, because he kind of doesn’t trust himself to set Eddie down on the bed without dropping him.

“Hey, Eds, I’m gonna set you down on your feet, is that okay?”

“Mm,” mumbles Eddie. Eyes flutter open, clamp shut at the light, but it’s enough for Richie to know he’s awake, and he carefully places him down on the ground.

Then Eddie’s standing sideways in front of Richie, swaying, leaning his shoulder into Richie’s chest to support himself. So close that his hair tickles Richie’s chin. Rubs his eyes and then tilts his chin. Looks up at Richie, just as Richie is looking down at him.

And his face all sleepy, eyelids heavy, a tiny crease between his brows. There’s the slightest of frowns tugging at his lips – which are surprisingly pink, look soft to touch. Richie doesn’t know why he says _surprisingly_, like he hasn’t noticed before, the same way he’s noticed Eddie’s legs, Eddie’s eyes.

Richie envies the man that will get to wake up to this sleepy, frowny look every morning.

“All good, Eds?” Richie asks, but it comes out as barely more than a murmur. Low and gentle. Because there’s no reason to be loud, not with Eddie so close, because the way Eddie looks at him is gentle.

Eddie tilts his chin up even more, leaves only two breaths between them. His lips part. Just a little. And his eyelids grow heavier, so low-lidded they’re almost closed. But they’re not. He’s looking down.

At Richie’s mouth.

Every single hair on Richie’s body stands on end. One of Eddie’s hands comes up and cups Richie cheek, his mouth parting even more, as he looks at Richie’s mouth. Every single nerve in Richie’s body catches fire.

And Eddie kisses him. 

The kiss only last five seconds. Richie feels like he stops breathing for five hours. 

"I -" Eddie breathes, when he pulls away. He's still close, eyes flittering between Richie's own, almost cross-eyed. His lips are still shaped around the kiss. "I'm sorry – ”

Richie doesn’t let him finish. It’s like he’s driven by something innate in him, it’s like everything has clicked into place. 

He’s fourteen and kicking back in the clubhouse hammock, watching Eddie trail a very frazzled looking Ben. Eddie has obviously his done his research on safety codes, and is telling Ben that they need to install a smoke detector. Ben is throwing Richie _please help me _looks over his shoulder.

He’s sixteen and watching Eddie learn to drive in Richie’s father’s car. They’re not actually driving, they’re just sitting in Richie’s driveway, and Eddie is pretending to drive, because he wants everything memorised before he tries the real thing.

He’s seventeen and a half and Eddie has said “fuck Homecoming” so the two of them have skipped it and Richie’s stolen some of his parents’ alcohol and they’re drinking together at the quarry instead. And Richie’s watching Eddie get drunk for the first time and Eddie’s face is flushed and his eyes are glazed and he won’t stop _laughing. _

They’re thirteen they’re eighteen they’re fifteen they’re twelve.

He’s twenty three and Eddie has a girlfriend and Richie is bedridden for almost a full week. He’s twenty three and Eddie kisses some guy and Richie has a meltdown about it in the shower.

Richie thinks that maybe he’s wanted to kiss Eddie this whole time.

And so he leans down and kisses Eddie again.

It’s harder, more purposeful, but still tentative at first. A sense of _are we really doing this? _But then Eddie turns, cups Richie’s face with his other hand, and Richie places a hand on Eddie’s hip, chest to chest. And there’s a unanimous, _yes, we’re really fucking doing this. _

And it’s way better than anything Richie conjured up in those brain-glitches. Richie thinks that everything about Eddie is way better than you can imagine; like even the most brilliant mind could only ever sell Eddie short. Because Eddie is keen and confident, pushing up against him. And Richie’s body burns everywhere Eddie touches him. And Eddie’s mouth is hot on Richie’s own.

Like, _so fucking hot_, in every sense of the word. Hot and eager and hungry. Richie pulls Eddie completely flush against him, deepens the kiss. Lips parting, all warm breath, wet tongues, desperate mouths. A small sound escapes Eddie’s throat, he moves his hand and curls his fingers in the hair on the back of Richie’s neck. A jolt of electricity cracks down the centre of Richie’s body as Eddie tightens his grip and tugs.

“Eddie,” Richie breathes, breaking away. He already feels so dizzy he almost can’t see Eddie’s face when he opens his eyes. Everything kind of swimming. But he sees it. There’s no way he could miss it. Eddie’s parted, wet mouth, heavy, wanting eyelids. “Oh, fuck, Eddie.”

Richie doesn’t know what he broke away to say. He thinks he just wanted to say Eddie’s name.

Eddie lifts up on his toes, bumps his nose against Richie’s. “We’re kissing right now,” he says against Richie’s lips. He looks like he’s dizzy, too.

“Yeah," Richie murmurs back. "And it’s like, really fucking good,”

“_Really_ fucking good,” Eddie says, and pulls Richie back in.

Who knows how long they kiss for after that. Maybe five minutes. Maybe five lifetimes. All Richie knows is that at some point, Eddie starts to walk him back toward his bed, and Richie’s brain stutters when his knees hit the edge of the mattress.

Eddie pulls away, climbs up onto the bed, scoots up until he’s on his back by the pillows, and leans down on his elbows. He plants his feet on the bed, knees bent up, and then he parts them. He looks at Richie.

It’s an invitation.

_Holy shit holy fucking shit holy shit. _

“I’m fucking dreaming,” Richie says. Eddie laughs.

And once Richie is between Eddie’s legs, he thinks that it’s possible he might never leave.

They’re kissing again, but now Richie has one hand gripping Eddie’s thigh. It’s warm and soft, Richie’s finger sinking into his skin. Eddie’s other leg is strong and steady, squeezed up against him. They’re kissing again but now Richie’s glasses keep slipping down his nose, so Eddie takes them off, and it only lets Richie kiss him even deeper.

They’re kissing again but now Richie lets his mouth leave Eddie’s, and he presses kisses down Eddie’s jaw, down Eddie’s neck. Eddie makes those little breathy, hitching sounds, and Richie feels a heat burning low in his stomach. He kisses Eddie’s shoulder, tugs down the collar of Eddie’s shirt and kisses his collarbone. Eddie tangles his hand in Richie’s hair, holds him there, encouraging.

It’s like everything else with Eddie; easy, natural, almost achingly familiar, even though this is so fucking new. There’s no overthinking; no doubt. Richie shuffles a little down Eddie’s body, until he can press a kiss to the inside of Eddie’s knee. And then a kiss to Eddie’s lower thigh. And then one to his mid-thigh. And another. Searing, open-mouthed kisses, trailing up Eddie’s leg.

And_, god, _Richie could become addicted to this. Eddie’s soft, warm thigh against Richie’s lips. How velvety it feels under Richie’s tongue. The way Eddie whimpers, squirms, as Richie nips there. Fuck, Richie’s a leg-man. He’s just discovered it. He’s a fucking leg-man.

He buries his face in Eddie’s inner thigh.

“_Richie,” _Eddie breathes, as Richie sucks a mark into the tender skin. Eddie tries to bring his knees together, essentially trapping Richie’s head between them.

“Fuck, yeah, crush me with your fucking thighs, Eds,” Richie says, his face so close to Eddie’s leg that he can feel his own warm breath on his face. “Just fucking murder me with them. That’s how I want to go.” 

Eddie’s hand scrabbles for Richie shoulder. He clutches his fingers in Richie’s shirt and tugs him back up towards his face. Richie lets himself be pulled, plants a hand by Eddie’s head to support himself, hovering over him. And Eddie is a _sight_ beneath him. Face flushed, pupils blown. His mouth kissed red, lips slightly swollen. All golden and glowy in the bedroom’s gentle lamplight. It’s intoxicating to look at. Richie brings his other hand up and presses his thumb to the corner of Eddie’s mouth.

“I have something to tell you,” Eddie blurts. His voice is airy and gentle, so it doesn’t _sound_ bad, Richie’s chest still tightens nervously anyway.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah." Eddie says it like he's exhaling a deep breath. Nervous. “You were… kind of the reason I broke up with Hannah.”

“I thought it was because she wasn’t a dude,” Richie says, just to be annoying. His heart is actually going a mile a minute.

Eddie gets that pinched, unimpressed look. “Well, yeah, that too,” he says. “But. Remember that day I called you? Because you were sick?"

“Aww, yeah. You were all worried about me. Telling me drink water and all that,” Richie says. Pinches Eddie’s cheek. “So cute, Eds.” 

Eddie swats him away. “Stop it – ugh, Richie,” he drops his head right back against the pillow, groans, annoyed. “I’m trying to _tell you something,” _

“Sorry,” Richie says. But there’s something so reassuring about how comfortably they can slip into their usual dynamic, even with each other’s spit all over their mouths, and Richie half-way to hard between Eddie’s legs.

Eddie rolls his eyes. “_Anyway,” _he continues. “I was telling you to drink water and all that. And you told me not to worry. But your voice was deep and scratchy, because you were sick. And…” His cheeks go pink. “You called me ‘baby’.”

_Oh. _

“I knew you weren’t being serious about it. But I still got all flustered, like an idiot. And I couldn’t stop myself from imagining you calling me that because we were together. Like you were my boyfriend, calling me that.”

“Not the best thing to be thinking when you have a girlfriend,” Richie says, catching on.

“No,” Eddie says, and laughs. “Plus it was, like, ridiculously hot. With your voice all deep. It made me think of you calling me that while..” He cuts himself off, and now his whole face is red, and he’s not looking at Richie, but at a point on the ceiling, over Richie’s shoulder.

“While…?” Richie presses, but Eddie doesn’t continue, lips pressed together. And…_wait. _Hold the phone. Hold your horses. Nobody move a muscle. “Oh my god,” Richie says. “Please tell me you thought of me calling you that while we fucked.”

“_Dude!” _Eddie slings an arm over his face, embarrassed. That’s a _yes. _

“Oh, fuck.” It’s a match lighting a fuse. Richie’s going to explode. “Please also tell me you jerked off while thinking about it.”

Eddie replaces the arm over his face with both his hands. He makes a little miserable sound in his throat. Another _yes. _Another light matching lighting another fuse; Richie’s seriously about to blow.

“_I’m _definitely gonna jerk off thinking about it,” Richie says. “If that makes you feel any better.”

It makes Eddie laugh behind his hands.

“Also that is way less embarrassing than what _I _have to tell you,” Richie says. “Which is that I wasn’t sick, when you called me. Or even before. I was just jealous. Like, that’s it. But I was so jealous that I was throwing up and couldn’t function and shit. I was bedridden for_ six_ days because you got a _girlfriend_.”

A pair of brown eyes peek at Richie through Eddie’s fingers. “That’s so dramatic,” he says.

“I know.”

“And a little pathetic.”

Richie grins. “I know.”

“I think I’ve changed my mind about liking you.”

Richie’s heart grows a pair of wings and flutters against his ribcage, trying to break out. “You like me?”

“Yeah?” Eddie says, drops his hands from face, looking half like he wants to laugh, and half like he’s very troubled about Richie’s IQ level. “Did you not just hear about me dreaming about you being my boyfriend? Did we not just make out?”

“Oh, right.”

“I’m not gonna let just anyone leave a hickey on my fucking _thigh,_” Eddie continues.

“Well, good,” Richie says. But he’s smiling, and his bird-like heart is still trying break free of his ribs. “Because I would probably be hospitalised with jealousy if you did. Like, I could potentially die, Eds.”

Eddie laughs, because it’s so ridiculous. And Richie laughs. And Richie smiles. And Eddie smiles. And he’s kind of insanely beautiful, Eddie is, smiling up at Richie like that. His face is bright, his expression soft around the edges; he looks _happy. _

It hits Richie all at once, then, the reality of this. He and Eddie kissed, they made out, Eddie is currently lying under him on his bed. They like each other. This is going to change things. Things are going to change.

“Richie,” Eddie says. He brushes a curl from Richie’s face, tucks it behind his ear, smile still as bright as the sun. And Richie doesn’t feel worried, or nervous, or even a little apprehensive. Because Eddie’s is his best friend. Because it still feels like they could go out into the lounge-room right now and kick back on the couch, eat Doritos and carelessly throw the empty packets on the floor, chant _BevBevBev _together when she walks through the door, play videogames until the sun comes up, just like they usually do. Only now there’d be kissing in between.

“I don’t think you’ll have anything to be jealous of any time soon,” Eddie says. Which sounds a lot like _we’re boyfriends _now, or something. Actually, no, it _definitely_ sounds like that. Richie’s winged heart breaks free of its cage. He leans down and kisses Eddie. And again. And again.

“I know something _you_ can be jealous of,” Richie says against Eddie’s lips, but they’ve been kissing long enough that his voice is all breathy and weak.

“What?” Eddie asks, and he sounds just as breathless.

Richie pulls away, and he’s already laughing at himself, and Eddie already looks unimpressed, like he knows Richie’s about to say something dumb, because Eddie knows Richie better than anyone, just like Richie could beat anyone at a facts game about Eddie.

Richie grins. “My time on Rainbow Road.”

Eddie pulls him in for a kiss, to shut him up, but he laughs right into Richie's mouth. 

(And he beats Richie's time the next day). 

**Author's Note:**

> [tumblr](https://ransonejames.tumblr.com)
> 
> the title is from a song by meg myers but that song has like nothing to do with this fic i just want meg myers to blow my back out


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